The PESH are waddling their way to Christmas & trying not to freak out!

[FrankelInFoal]

The ante-natal fred for BESH graduates.

Recent Grads (aka CRESH)

blonderthanred, boy, born 26th October 2012
FriendofDorothy, boy, born 14th December 2012
QueenRollo, boy, born 21st January 2013
LazyMachine (38) boy EDD 9/2/13 - need an actual arrival date!
CamelKnees (34) EDD 22/04/2013 - need actual arrival date!
HaveALittleFaith (31), Faithlet arrived 14th April 2013
fertilityFTW (34) arrival date needed!
pinkr, (33), girl born 25th August 2013
Jethro (36) boy born 23rd September 2013

Waiting to lay:
Noks - EDD 28/12/2013
Frankel - EDD 4/3/2014
Sinky - EDD 18/3/2014
Ginfox - EDD end April 2014
Kat - EDD needed
Drizz - EDD 7/6/2014
Draf - EDD 19/6/2014
Winks - EDD 29/6/2014

Apologies for any misinformation or omissions!

Right PESH, I've got a confession to make.

You know how I said we didn't find out the sex at the 20wk scan? Well I sorta fibbed

We decided to find out for ourselves and keep it a secret, but a few weeks ago HWHNN accidentally let it slip to his brother . We had a long chat about why we were keeping it a secret and decided that the initial decision to keep it to ourselves was mainly so we could get our heads around it. We're now very used to the idea and figure telling family etc will actually make peoples lives easier when it comes to buying stuff - if they want to that is

So, I'm here to now officially declare that we are on.........

Team Pink

Hooray for girls!

Oh yay Frank! Another ESH girly to add to the collection. :) not biased at all but girls are luffly! sneaky finding out and keeping it secret!

frank you rascal, fibbing to us! Aww wee girls are gorgeous.

My spidey senses told me girl for you frank!

Just need to explain to my mum that we will not require head to toe pink/frills/lace on everything she wears

Yay for two wriggly thumb sucking babylets and a confirmed set of girly bits! Ver good news all around! (I also though pink for you, Cavelina) I'm so chuffed for all y'all updiffers.

Re. telling the nephew, TinyTOM was 8 when we broke the news about NotSoLazyBoy and he was truly thrilled - it's an age when they're old enough to know that the new baby isn't going to be competition! No sharing of toys, different interests, all the important stuff to feel secure for a continued special place, while they also get to take on the role of 'cool older kid' in the little ones eyes.

little one's eyes

Oh frank you total rascal ! Congrats on a team pink one. You sound delighted about it - was it your preference (if you had one) ?

Hags, I am having quite a lovely moment. I have left CASAF painting the nursery (finally) and have come into Guildford to get some bits for the baby. I really never thought I would ever be in a position to do this, so I am savouring every moment. It's so special and I feel incredibly lucky. I would always well-up whenever I was anywhere near baby clothes, so it's nice to be able to pick them up and choose them for MY baby. I'd be sitting here snivelling like a good'un if I wasn't ripped to the tits on sugar, courtesy of a large slice of M&S cherry bakewell cake.

Oh norks you old softie, that's lovely. Enjoy your shopping and cake, not long before you can put those clothes on an actual baybee of your own?

Um, there wasn't supposed to be a question mark there! In my defence I've just woken up. We went to Westfield Stratford today, had brunch (cinnamon french toast, bacon and fruit - yum) then did our Christmas shopping plus a little bit of cooing in Mamas And Papas, and the baby section in John Lewis. It wiped me out! A post shopping nap was in order.

I know twonks what a big girl I am. I just can't help it. You lot know what a fight it's all been for us to get here so I don't need to explain it all to you. It's just the best feeling ever (come back to me in three months when I'm covered in vom'n'poo and haven't slept properly in weeks and I may not be so misty eyed).

Have you stopped squeeing yet ?

Ah, shopping at The Ford of Strat (as my local mate calls it). Cooing at baby stuff is the order of the day I reckon. You've waited long enough to do it so enjoy it.

Erm, nope. I squee'd into myself looking at the gorgeous little sleepsuits in mamas and papas. And even harder when, rather than trail me out, HWCA pointed out we had missed a bit of the shop and took me to look at bouncers and high chairs

Norks what colour did you get the Vista in?

Aw Norks. I still have fun picking out Faithlet's outfits each morning. Shopping gets slightly less awwww as they get bigger but it's still fun!

Keep squeeing winks, there's a baybee in your tumtum! :)

We went for the black twonks. CASAF said that the red wasn't manly enough (and was paranoid that it would fade to pink in the sun which would look terrible if it was a boy). I indulged him and got the black. Fuck knows why I listened to him. He wants to give our child a Viking name if it's a boy, the massive eejit.

faif I reckon it must be great fun doing that for a girl baybee. So many pretty things to choose from. Squeeeee.

I wasn't keen on the red in real life, I think I might get the blue. Yes I am getting wildly ahead of myself!

norks I need to know the Viking name. Does he have a Norse heritage?

HWHNN prefers the red Vista, it's pretty unisex so hopefully we'll get more than one use out of it.

I didn't really have a preference, but I was having girlie inklings and was a bit worried about knowing what boys like, not having been one! I pointed out to HWHNN that keeping girl's away from boys is easy - just get them interested in ponies and your sorted

I've had many internal squee moments when looking at baby clothes, like Nokks says, I never thought I'd get to do it for myself.

I was looking at GroBags in TK Maxx at lunchtime, anyone else used them? If so what did you do when they were first born, as I believe they have to be a minimum 9-ish pounds before they can start using them? Did you use the baby swaddle things that they also sell. I know there has been some talk recently about swaddling potentially being an issue for hips and legs.

Fully rely on grobags although don't own any official owns. TK Maxx and asda ones. Basically they're fine once baby is big enough not to slide through the holes. Also helpful if you have an exploding poo in the night because it keeps them contained!

We never swaddled Faithlet. Age always like her hands out so I figured she'd hate it. We got a red colour pack for our oyster. Gender neutral and better than the blue because apparently it was Chelsea colour. I was not a fan of the orange or lime!

My friends twins sleep in grobags, it's like magic, as soon as they get zipped in its sleep mode. They just used cellular blankets when they were teeny (and they were very teeny! Littlest was 3lbs) which did the job nicely.

Yes they do say swaddling can trap the legs and cause damage, apparently there can be overheating issues too. But it looks so cosy.

Please don't think I was being rude about the red! It's lovely, I was just rather taken with the blue.

I've just changed browsers on my phone because I tried 4 times to post the above message, and apparently Dolphin didn't think I should talk about grobags and swaddling. How rude.

I wasn't offended by you dissing the red Winks < see what I did there?!

Yes MN has been a bit off since they did the big server-alignment thingy, or whatever it was, on Sunday.

Ta for the GroBag (which I typed as GroVag just now, that's an entirely different thing!) tips. I can see the arguments for and against swaddling, and I'm sure I've seen little swaddle bags which are like GroBags but smaller so not as tight as full-on swaddling.

I've heard you can get grobag type things that you can use from birth, but don't know where!

Progress in the sinky household, ghj found a Moses basket bargain in mamas and papas (£120 to £50) and bought it cause it was such a deal! Will get it on Friday and officially have the first bit of baby stuff in the house!

Bump has been mischevious today. Had a bit of a panic earlier as he wasn't really moving/kicking. But more active now, so think he might just have twisted round to kick my back where I can't feel it. In the days before he's started jumping on my bladder for the first time, so guess he's just swimming round in circles! (Wish he'd move back to my front so I can feel him though...)

We used zip up little worm suits swaddles - worked like a charm for calming him down/inducing sleep (and obviously didn't cause any hip issues as NotSoLazyBoy started properly walking at 8.5 months!) He loved being swaddled - but only when we switched from the square to the zippered ones. Much easier. Love To Dream were my favourites.

We currently use Grobags and I am a huge fan. He knows when it goes on that it's 'sleepytime' - really brilliant little trigger! TKMaxx sells the GroBag brand for something like £16.99. Good deal.